Each year in the United States nearly three hundred thousand people are sexually assaulted. New practices by police, prosecutors, nurses, and rape crisis professionals are resulting in more humane and compassionate treatment of victims, and more aggressive pursuit and prosecution of persecutors. Based on seven years of in-depth interviews in Cleveland, Detroit, Memphis and other cities, Johnston presents the people behind these new approaches and provides a template for organizations and communities to follow
I consider two theories of affective polarization between Democrats and Republicans in the United States: (1) ideological divergence on size‐of‐government issues (Webster & Abramowitz, ) and (2) authoritarianism‐based partisan sorting (Hetherington & Weiler, ). I argue that these alternatives cannot be easily disentangled, because politically engaged citizens seek out and assimilate information about economic policy from elites who are perceived to share their core traits and cultural values. In this way, the economic preferences emphasized by the first view are partly endogenous to the worldview divide emphasized by the second. Elite position taking on economic issues may elicit strong emotions among citizens because it reliably signals a commitment to one worldview or the other. I review new and existing evidence for this claim in both observational survey data and two experimental studies. I also consider the broader implications of these results for the distribution of economic opinion across indicators of human capital.
Because the public school budgeting process is arguably the single most important process in a school district, the budgeting process is a leadership challenge for the Superintendent. This leadership challenge is even more pronounced in fiscally dependent school districts where the school board does not have the authority to tax and must obtain funding from the local governing board. In fiscally dependent school districts, superintendents must develop and guide the school district budget through two different boards with different responsibilities and interests: a school board focusing on the educational vision of the school district and a local governing board focusing on overall community needs and tax rates. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of fiscal dependence on superintendent leadership during the budget process. This multi-case study utilized Stake's (2006) multi-case analysis methods to determine findings from four cases selected using a stratified, purposeful sampling of school districts in Virginia, a fiscally dependent state. The analysis resulted in eleven findings: 1) Superintendents guide school district budgets through the local government approval process. 2) The fiscally dependent method of school district funding in Virginia has a direct impact on the development of the school district budget. 3) The importance of education in a community influences the budget development process. 4) Personalities and relationships can be more important than budget processes and documents. 5) Limited local revenue has an impact on the budget development process. 6) An appointed school board increases the importance of the local governing board and influences the budget approval process. 7) The depth to which local government leaders look at the budget details influences the district budget development process. 8) Superintendents ensure frequent and ongoing dialogue with local government leaders. 9) Superintendents maintain good relationships with the local government leaders. 10) Superintendents have a good budget process and budget document. 11) Superintendents involve and engage the larger school community. This study has implications for superintendents that work in states with fiscally dependent school districts. ; Ph. D.
In: Political science quarterly: a nonpartisan journal devoted to the study and analysis of government, politics and international affairs ; PSQ, Band 129, Heft 3, S. 547-548
There has been a substantial increase in research on the determinants and consequences of political ideology among political scientists and social psychologists. In psychology, researchers have examined the effects of personality and motivational factors on ideological orientations as well as differences in moral reasoning and brain functioning between liberals and conservatives. In political science, studies have investigated possible genetic influences on ideology as well as the role of personality factors. Virtually all of this research begins with the assumption that it is possible to understand the determinants and consequences of ideology via a unidimensional conceptualization. We argue that a unidimensional model of ideology provides an incomplete basis for the study of political ideology. We show that two dimensions-economic and social ideology-are the minimum needed to account for domestic policy preferences. More importantly, we demonstrate that the determinants of these two ideological dimensions are vastly different across a wide range of variables. Focusing on a single ideological dimension obscures these differences and, in some cases, makes it difficult to observe important determinants of ideology. We also show that this multidimensionality leads to a significant amount of heterogeneity in the structure of ideology that must be modeled to fully understand the structure and determinants of political attitudes. Adapted from the source document.